@Abbey He’s grown up so much in a year and a half. Melur isn’t keen for him to wander off, but he’s not far off that age. He’s very curious about Daya and there’s been a lot of positive interactions between the two of them apparently.
@Zoofan15 That's good to hear, both for them forming a cohesive unit in the short-term, and hopefully (a long way down the track) for Bahmi to be Daya's future breeding partner following on from Charlie.
@Abbey I agree that’s the most likely eventuality. Charlie is ranked as the second most genetically valuable captive male Bornean orangutan in the world, so I would expect Bahmi to promptly enter a breeding situation. The staff seem confident Charlie has plenty of time left, but he’s 42 years old and it would be prudent to breed from him sooner rather than later. I’m hopeful Charlie and Melur will have one more infant together (around 4-5 years after Bahmi); with Charlie and Daya producing an infant in the interim. Melur is 35 years old, so one final infant in her late 30’s also works out well for her.
@Zoofan15 I agree. The other benefit of having two breeding females (especially if they can be integrated) is that if Melur and Charlie were to have another infant, and this baby was female, she would be able to witness Daya raising a baby (hopefully), even if she is her own mother's final offspring.
@Abbey Very true. In the short term, having infants close in age will be great for their social development. It was before my time, but Intan and Datuk were born two months apart in 1989. It would have been fascinating to have seen the interactions they had growing up. Isim was born five years later and since The Zoo TV series noted the value of the Taronga females as playmates for Isim (when they were imported in 2001), I’d assume his sister, Intan, wasn’t that much fun from his perspective.
